Home, and where we think it is
For the first 20 years of my life I lived in the same house.
Same yard, same neighbors, same street.
There was security in the sameness.
And then I got married and in the next decade moved 5 times. Home, for a long time, was a place, a structure that did not move.
I am fighting against the thought that home is not that at all. There is a part of me that wants home to be that house. That place that will always be there and always be the same.
But when you move from one place to the next, you've got to redefine what home is. Otherwise, you'll never be home.
This past year has caused me to stretch my thinking in that regard. To realize even more that "this world is not my home, I'm just passing through."
I realized the other day that several of our missionary friends have all made major moves in the last couple months.
From America to Ethiopia
From Illinois to Michigan for Campus Crusade (with a newborn!)
From Senegal to America (on furlough) and then soon on to Jordan
From Michigan to Indiana to Missouri for missionary training
From America to Zambia
No doubt all of these families have had to grapple with the idea of home, and where exactly it is. We were made to desire security and a place to call our own. And I don't think there is anything wrong with trying to scratch out a place for ourselves on this planet.
But when we place more stock in this world, than where we are going next, well, our perspective is sorely out of focus.
My security does not lie within these walls that surround me.
Our security needs to be placed in the One who holds our future, and has promised to prepare a home for us. So that someday we can be where He is.
May we all turn our eyes to our eternal prize, and remember that we are
not
home
yet.
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. Hebrews 11:13-16
Same yard, same neighbors, same street.
There was security in the sameness.
And then I got married and in the next decade moved 5 times. Home, for a long time, was a place, a structure that did not move.
I am fighting against the thought that home is not that at all. There is a part of me that wants home to be that house. That place that will always be there and always be the same.
But when you move from one place to the next, you've got to redefine what home is. Otherwise, you'll never be home.
This past year has caused me to stretch my thinking in that regard. To realize even more that "this world is not my home, I'm just passing through."
From America to Ethiopia
From Illinois to Michigan for Campus Crusade (with a newborn!)
From Senegal to America (on furlough) and then soon on to Jordan
From Michigan to Indiana to Missouri for missionary training
From America to Zambia
No doubt all of these families have had to grapple with the idea of home, and where exactly it is. We were made to desire security and a place to call our own. And I don't think there is anything wrong with trying to scratch out a place for ourselves on this planet.
But when we place more stock in this world, than where we are going next, well, our perspective is sorely out of focus.
Our security needs to be placed in the One who holds our future, and has promised to prepare a home for us. So that someday we can be where He is.
May we all turn our eyes to our eternal prize, and remember that we are
not
home
yet.
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. Hebrews 11:13-16
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